


The Lake

by Trash_PandaTO



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: F/F, Ice Rescue, Sharing Body Heat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-19
Updated: 2018-01-19
Packaged: 2019-03-06 15:29:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13414197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trash_PandaTO/pseuds/Trash_PandaTO
Summary: Wynonna, Waverly and Nicole are chasing a revenant, when one of them falls through the ice and has to be rescued. It's Alberta in the winter. It's cold, and life-threatening.Inspiration for this: https://twitter.com/theheatherhogan/status/947226695181983748





	The Lake

Shit.

Shit, shit, shit, shit. This was bad.

“Haught! Dammit, we need to get out there and get her! Now!”

“I know, Wynonna, I know!” She looked out over the frozen lake, where she heard splashing and screaming coming from her girlfriend. They had been out chasing a revenant, tracking his path in the snow when they had lost sight of him. And then, seemingly out of nowhere and with super-human, or non-human, speed, he had grabbed Waverly and dragged her out onto the lake. The ice should have been solid enough – it was the middle of winter in Purgatory, and after several weeks of -20 degrees, the layer of ice on the lake should have been thick enough to carry a tank. Nicole wasn’t sure what happened. All she knew was that one moment, the revenant had Waverly by her throat, Wynonna pointing Peacemaker at him from her spot near the shore, and the next moment, the ice broke, swallowing them both. Nicole swore her heart stopped in that moment.

Somehow, Waverly had popped back up, no revenant in sight. But now, the bigger danger was the water, and the cold. Nicole’s training kicked in. She looked around, scanning the area for fallen tree trunks, rotten boats boards, anything she could have used to get out on the ice and disperse her weight enough to get near Waverly and grab her. Alas, the sparse vegetation around the lake didn’t give her much to work with. She turned, and ran back to her cruiser that was parked not too far away from the shoreline, popping the trunk to grab a long rope and the first long item she could find: her tire iron.

“Haught! What the hell are you doing? I am going out there!” Wynonna was already half way on the ice.

“NO! Stop, Wynonna. I need you on the shore. Here…” she handed one end of the rope to her and quickly tied the other end around her right ankle. “I am going to go grab her, but I need you to pull us both back as hard as you can as soon as I have her. Okay?”

Wynonna nodded and turned back toward the lake, desperation on her face. “Baby girl, hold on! We are coming to get you out of there!”

“O…o-oka..y”, Waverly sputtered, breathless. She was trying to grab the edge of the ice where she had gone under, but the more she moved, the more the ice around her broke up, leaving her nothing solid to hang on to. Waverly grew more and more frantic, and worse, more breathless with every move.

Nicole saw what was happening, and hurriedly tied a few solid knots in the rope for Wynonna to hang on to and pull. “Waverly….baby! I am coming to get you. I need you to try and keep your arms a little more to yourself, okay? Hold yourself above the water, but don’t try to pull yourself up on the edge just yet, okay? I’ll be right there! Hang on, just….I’ll help you!”

She took a few careful but solid steps onto the ice. It felt stable and thick toward the edge of the lake, so she hurried closer to where it was broken up, her feet beginning to splash in puddles of water that had accumulated on top of the ice.

“Nico…le. Nic…I-I can’t…do….this much…longer. Everything feels….heavy. C-cold.”

Nicole looked up. She was maybe 20 metres away from the edge and Waverly’s hands. Blood was rushing in her ears and all she could think was that she had to go get her girlfriend before she went under the ice. She skidded closer and closer to the hole where Waverly was now struggling to tread water.

“I’m almost there! Hang on, I am almost there!”

She felt her feet sinking in a bit, and saw the cracks forming around her. She knew she had to get down and disperse her weight, so she lowered herself to her knees and then to her stomach to spread out the pressure of her weight on the ice. The sting of the cold water that was seeping through her pants and her coat made her hold her breath for a few seconds, but she pushed forward. She got to within about 2 metres from the hole in the ice when she felt the surface underneath her turn to something akin to chunky slush. She knew this was as far as she could go without going into the water herself, so she grabbed the tire iron and slid it as far as she could towards Waverly while hanging on to the other end of it.

She saw Waverly’s face, lips blue, eyes starting to show the pure exhaustion. “Okay, baby. I need you to…to try and grab the end of it. Carefully. Slowly. Okay? And once you have it, you need to hang on and not let go, at all, no matter what!”

“O…okay.” Waverly reached her hand out of the water, but her wet coat was dragging her down more than she had anticipated. She struggled to reach much beyond the initial edge of the broken up ice. “I…I-I can’t…Ni…cole. I can’t….reach it.”

“I know it’s hard, but you need to try. You can. I know you can.” Nicole was trying to encourage her girlfriend to push just that bit more, only a few inches separating her hand and the end of the tire iron. At the same time, she was trying to get just that little bit closer.

“Wynonna!” she yelled, not looking back, keeping her face trained on Waverly. “When I say GO, you need to pull, yank as hard as you can! Got it?”

“YES. YANK. I GOT IT!”

“We’re almost there, baby. Just one more little push, okay?” She shot her girlfriend a little half smile, trying to keep her own panic out of her voice as much as possible. By now, the slush and water was seeping through her coat, the cold burning against her skin relentlessly. She was more than a little breathless herself, but she knew she had one good shot here if she could rile up Waverly enough for a short burst of energy. “Just reach as far as your tiny arms can go!”

There was a pause in the movements and then Waverly cursed, “Ass...m-my arms…are…NOT….tiny!” and she pushed herself up out of the water just enough to grab the piece of metal Nicole was holding on to. “Not tiny!”

“GO, WYNONNA. PULL!”

Nicole felt a hard rip on her right leg, and almost thought that Wynonna had managed to dislocate her hip, yanking on that damn rope. But she didn’t care and focussed only on the woman in front of her. Wynonna had pulled hard enough to get both of them out on the surface, but they were still on the part of the ice that was broken up enough that it threatened to give away any second. “PULL AGAIN! FAST!”

“I AM PULLING, JACKASS! YOU GUYS AREN’T EXACTLY FEATHERWEIGHTS!”

In short bursts, Nicole felt her body being dragged back, chin scraping on the uneven ice, her eyes never leaving her girlfriend. Waverly was gripping her end of the tire iron so tightly that her hands had turned white. She was looking at Nicole, panting, a mix of panic and anger in her eyes. “We got you, just hold on. We got you.” When Nicole felt the ice underneath her become more solid, she told Wynonna to stop pulling and scrambled to her knees and immediately grabbed Waverly’s arms. She helped her up to stand, but Waverly’s legs buckled. She quickly pulled her into her body and held her up, turning to make their way back to shore where Wynonna had started walking onto the ice to meet them half way. As soon as all three were back on solid land, Waverly’s whole body slumped, forcing the two other women on the ground with her as she collapsed. She was shivering violently and couldn’t seem to catch her breath.

“You’re okay, we got you. You’re going to be okay. Let’s get you out of here.” Nicole pushed wet hair out of Waverly’s face and gave her a short peck on her very blue and very cold lips.

“Mmm…s..mmmnot t-tiny…” Waverly mumbled, speech slurring.

Nicole looked at Wynonna and they quickly got up and carried Waverly to the cruiser. By the time they reached the car, Waverly was no longer responsive.

“Shit. Wy….you gotta drive!” She deposited Waverly in the back seat and immediately started pulling the wet clothes off of her girlfriend, stripping her down to her underwear.

“Ummm, okay…”

Nicole rolled her eyes. “WYNONNA! There should be a blanket in the trunk. Go grab it!” Wynonna stood frozen for a few seconds, but then she rushed to the trunk and grabbed the heavy wool blanket she found. By the time she got back around to the backseat, she saw that Nicole was in her underwear as well and was carefully wrapping herself around Waverly. She tossed the blanket over them both and hopped in the driver seat.

Nicole could feel the cold from Waverly’s body against her skin and it made her shiver. Nevertheless, she pulled her closer and tried to wrap them both in the blanket as much as possible. She felt the car moving along the bumpy path toward the main road and picking up speed.

“Earp! Turn on the siren! Switch is to your right, in front of you.”

She heard Wynonna fumble with a few buttons and curse, but finally flicked the right one and the sirens came on. She pulled herself even closer to Waverly, not only to share her body heat, but also to hang on and make sure the two of them wouldn’t get flung off the back seat with Wynonna driving at high speed over every bump and around every turn.

She looked down at the woman pressed to her front, who was still out cold and whispered “You’re going to be okay, baby. You’re going to be okay. Please be okay.”

Eventually, they reached the hospital and Wynonna rushed out of the car toward the doors to yell at the nurses for help. “We’re here, Wave. The doctors will help you.” She looked at the pale face and shivered, and in that same moment, the door opened and several sets of hands helped her get Waverly out of the car and onto the gurney to rush her inside. Nurses and doctors were barking out orders while Nicole stood frozen just outside her cruiser, wearing nothing but her underwear and socks. She stared at the door that everyone ran into, but couldn’t make herself move or breathe. The cold had seeped into her bones, but she could barely feel it anymore. She didn’t know how long she was standing there, but she suddenly felt a hand on her shoulder, wrapping an emergency blanket around her back.

“Officer, let’s get you inside and warmed up, too.” The nurse gently nudged her shoulders in the direction of the door and Nicole let herself be pulled inside.

What followed was a blur. She found herself pushed into a room where someone handed her a set of scrubs and an old pair of running shoes. A nurse came in and cleaned and patched up her chin and hands where the ice had scraped off the skin in several spots. The thin, golden emergency blanket was replaced with a heavier, warmer one around her shoulders, and eventually, someone led her to the waiting room and pushed her into one of the chairs with a Styrofoam cup of warm, but likely terrible coffee in her hands. She couldn’t drink it. Her hands were shaking, and her head was pounding. All she could do was stare at a spot right in front of her feet on the floor. Waverly had been unconscious. What if they hadn’t got her here fast enough? What if there was permanent damage? The image of her girlfriend’s unresponsive and very cold face flashed in front of her eyes on a loop. Also, where on earth did that revenant go?

“Haught. Dude…hey. NICOLE!” She was shaken out of her thoughts an undetermined amount of time later.

“Hm?” Nicole said, recognizing Wynonna’s voice, but not really looking up from that spot on the floor.

“She’s okay, Nicole. They have her hooked up and are warming her up, but she’s okay. Awake. Let’s go!”

Wynonna grabbed her arm and pulled her down the hallway and into the room where Waverly was lying in bed, IV in her arm and under a set of heating blankets. She carefully shuffled toward the side of the bed and took her girlfriend’s hand. It still felt cold and clammy, but it was now twitching slowly as Waverly was squeezing her fingers.

“Hey.” They both said at the same time, Waverly a little more breathless than Nicole.

“You scared me today.”

“Nnn you called me tiny. Mmm not tiny.”

Nicole looked up at Wynonna, who was standing on the other side of the bed, hand on her sister’s shoulder, and then down at the woman underneath a pile of heating blankets.

“No,” she chuckled lightly, “no, you’re not. You’re extraordinary.“


End file.
